Austrian-born baby panda opens eyes
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A baby panda, born in August at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo, has opened its eyes, director of the zoo said on Tuesday.
Dagmar Schratter said, "The little body was sleeping most of the time, but he has been able to open its eyes to look around occasionally."
Opening their eyes is a milestone in the development of baby pandas. A healthy baby panda usually opens its eyes about 35 to 48 days after birth.
The baby panda was developing well and its weight had risen to about 2.5 kg from the birth weight of 100 grams, with silky body fur and clearer black and white colors, Schratter said.
The more typical signs of a panda had emerged though it was still just a baby, she said, adding that the cub was not yet able to crawl and had not left the birth box since he was born.
The baby panda's mother, Yang Yang, looked less stressed than when she had given birth. She left the birth box to eat bamboo, drink or take a nap regularly and the longest she had left her son was two hours.
The panda cub, born on Aug. 23, was the second son of Chinese pandas staying in Vienna, Yang Yang and Long Hui. It is the second panda born in Europe and conceived naturally in a zoo.
Schratter told Xinhua that currently the work of giving a name to the panda had started, adding that the cub would be named at the celebration of its "one hundred days."
To promote collaborative research into pandas between Austria and China, Yang Yang and Long Hui were moved from Panda Base in Sichuan Province to Vienna in 2003 to begin a 10-year stay abroad.
According to a loan agreement, the newly born panda is expected to be moved to China in about two years. Fu Long, the first Vienna-born panda, was sent back to China last year.
